Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and overfishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.

The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible

How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883

The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa (the name has since become a by-word for a cataclysmic disaster) was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event which has only very recently become properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round the world for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid.

A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

The international best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force.

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

In 1793, William Smith, the orphan son of a village blacksmith, made a startling discovery that was to turn the science of geology on its head. While surveying the route for a canal near Bath, he noticed that the fossils found in one layer of the rocks he was excavating were very different from those found in another. And out of that realization came an epiphany: that by following these fossils one could trace layers of rocks as they dipped, rose and fell, clear across England and clear across the world.

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Writing with marvelous brio, Simon Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language and pays homage to the great dictionary makers from Samuel Johnson to Noah Webster before turning his unmatched talent for storytelling to the making of the most venerable of dictionaries: The Oxford English Dictionary.

Alice Behind Wonderland

On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.

The Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkans

Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.

The Professor and the Madman

Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.

The Titanic: Disaster of the Century

Based on the sensational evidence of the U.S. Senate hearings, eyewitness accounts, and the results of the 1985 Woods Hole expedition that photographed the ship, this electrifying account vividly re-creates the Titanic's last desperate hours afloat and fully addresses the questions that have continued to haunt the the world’s most famous marine disaster.

Broadsides: The Age of Fighting Sail, 1775-1815

In the late 18th century, it was widely thought that to be a sailor was little better than to be a slave. "No man will be a sailor," wrote Samuel Johnson, "who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail. A man in jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company." If that were true, historian Nathan Miller suggests, then the record of sailing in the age of tall ships would likely be distinguished by few heroes and fewer grand narratives.

The Battle of the Tanks: Kursk, 1943

On July 5, 1943, the greatest land battle in history began when Nazi and Red Army forces clashed near the town of Kursk, on the western border of the Soviet Union. Code named Operation Citadel, the German offensive would cut through the bulge in the eastern front that had been created following Germany's retreat at the battle of Stalingrad. But the Soviets, well informed about Germany's plans through their network of spies, had months to prepare.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.

After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe: Interdisciplinary Studies in History

A work of genuine social history, After the Black Death leads the listener into the villages and cities of European society. The book begins with an overview of family and community structure, social conflict, and religious beliefs. After describing the fundamental traits of both rural and urban society, it considers the elites, armed rebellion, poverty, criminality, sexual behavior, and marriage practices.

The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination

William Shakespeare's gripping play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a lifelong friend.

Ghost Wave: The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth

Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth.

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.

Audible Editor Reviews

Tackling a subject as deep  and I mean that literally  as the ocean is not a task for just any writer. But Simon Winchester, a former reporter who has put his research skills to use on books about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary, ably turns out a detailed and dramatic history of one of our most valuable resources. He also provides the book’s narration, with an expert’s reading that brings plenty of passion to an otherwise dry subject.

Winchester structures the book around Shakespeare’s famous passage about the seven stages of man  the one that starts out, “All the world’s a stage” and traces life from its “infant beginnings” to its “sans everything” end. Here, the seven stages belong to the ocean, starting with its geological development and ending with a look at just how long it may last. In between, Winchester draws together countless stories, anecdotes, trivia, and facts, showing just how influential the Atlantic has been on life as we know it: Piracy, Moroccan snails, naval development, the age of exploration, whaling, poetry, literature, art, music, the Lusitania, global warming, international laws, pollution, submarines, seafood, overfishing, the slave trade, Lord Nelson, NATO, air travel, the Titanic, deadly battles, hurricanes, and Columbus all get their spot in, as Winchester says, “the immense complexity of an ocean that has been pivotal to the human story”.

Though it’s not always purely chronological, the organization by theme makes wading through this epic biography easy, and Winchester’s authoritative British accent lends a pleasant tone. And once you’ve heard about all the misconceptions people used to have about the ocean  like that heavier objects would sink not just faster but farther toward the bottom than lighter ones, which would stay suspended at shallower depths  you’ll wonder just how much more we have to learn. Blythe Copeland

Publisher's Summary

From best-selling author Simon Winchester comes the immense and thrilling story of the world's most mysterious and breathtaking natural wonder: the Atlantic Ocean.

Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues to affect profoundly our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and over-fishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.

Until a thousand years ago, few humans ventured into the Atlantic or imagined traversing its vast infinity. But once the first daring mariners successfully navigated to its far shores - whether they were Vikings, the Irish, the Basques, John Cabot, or Christopher Columbus in the north, or the Portuguese and the Spanish in the south - the Atlantic swiftly evolved in the world's growing consciousness of itself as an enclosed body of water. Soon it became the fulcrum of Western civilization. More than a mere history, Atlantic is an unforgettable journey of unprecedented scope by one of the most gifted writers in the English language.

Atlantic is well researched, interesting and superbly narrated. Between the so very interesting details Winchester weaves together, ranging from geology to geography to science to the personalities, the story is captivating. Winchester's vibrancy of language, coupled with his wonderful voice, make this a most entertaining and very informative audiobook.

I love Simon Winchester books. They are not for everyone though. If you are interested in trivia like what lured the Phoenicians out of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean (mollusks that give off royal purple dye) and like the concept that the Atlantic Ocean has a history that is unbelievably interesting, this book is for you. Plus, I love Simon Winchester's reading.

The first half or so of the book is fantastic. I immediately put several of Winchester's books on my wish list. Unfortunately the book slides into a global warming boiler plate and never regains its initial grace. Regardless of one's view on climate change - and I agree that it is changing - this just isn't how the book was billed. So I wound up with a sack of oranges when I thought I was buying apples. Climate change activists that pick up the book because of a good review based on the book's climate credentials will be disappointed overall (though they will be happy that someone of Winchester's stature is championing the cause) and the reader just looking for a good historical story will be put off by the surreptitious nature of its activist message.

I've enjoyed other books by Simon Winchester, such as Krakatoa. In fact, the author is one of my favorites. I was all set for another exciting journey. But, what an overwhelming long and tedious journey it was. I couldn't wait for Atlantic to end, and thought of stopping many times.

The story (if there is one) rambled on in no particular order time-wise and content-wise, literally jumping all over the map,.There are far too many topics, too much minutiae and too many words. Anything remotely connected to the Atlantic Ocean is fair game, The author inserted himself in several parts, as if he were an heroic adventurer.

Mr. Winchester also was narrator. I usually enjoy hearing writers read their own material. Unfortunately. In spite of his very British accent, but

I first became acquainted with Simon Winchester when I listened to him read his book Krakatoa several years ago. Since that time, I think I've enjoyed all of his audio book presentations. Atlantic is one of the best.

Many of his works have a geology story associated with them - and the connections between geology the subject of the book are fascinating. He has a gift for sharing insights about phenomena that leave the listener wondering - "I never knew that - why haven't I heard that before".

I've grown to love Simon Winchester's writing style - wrapping a thought in layers of adjectives to create a rich, thought-provoking visual picture of a concept he is teaching.

I really like the fact that this author reads his own works. His reading performance is wonderful and I never tire of hearing his personable, authentic and empathetic voice.

Atlantic weaves a fascinating story from the ocean's creation to its exploration and plundering by mankind. Simon Winchester explores the role of the Atlantic ocean in history and speculates about its future.

Take the opportunity to listen to this book, or any of Simon Winchester's other well-reseached books to learn much from this master teacher.

I loved Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa and thought I would like this as well. Unfortunately I found it unfocused and didn't like the first few stories. I usually finish books I start, but I abandoned this one early on. Maybe it gets better further into it?

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